The Trumpet's Loud Clangour

I start with a photo of a book which I shall probably buy for my grand daughter Matilda. She was booked in for a school trip to to Paris after Xmas, eagerly looking forward to going to the Louvre. Will she go? I don't know, everything is on a knife edge now, we endure and live through the mindlessness of M&S Christmas adverts, etc and make plans.  But the Western world is facing a crisis not just from Daesh but from the influx of refugees, we wobble around with plans for this and that, never taking a determined stand on anything. Should we go for Assad or Daesh, my answer is simple go for both, but then, more people are killed, and others forced down the refugee road, so that is no answer!

There are two news items that have touched a raw nerve, the first is of the photographer's, Magnus Wenman journey photographing where the Syrian children that are sleeping on their long trek across Europe.  It is totally sad and harrowing, the terrible memories will always be with them, the actions of war leave many victims.

The other video is of a little boy in Paris with his father being interviewed by a reporter, his fear of the 'bad men' and leaving home.  Reassured by his father that the flowers and candles will protect him, we know that this is not true.  We have arrived at a point of history, there have been many, when we must take decisions.

Today is  St.Cecilia's day, Handel and Purcell composed music from a John Dryden's poem, it does not quite fit the bill, but so many people have risen above the bloodshed and have been courageous, that perhaps this 'A Song for St.Cecilia's Day, written in  1687 will do.........

From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony

               This universal frame began.

       When Nature underneath a heap

               Of jarring atoms lay,

       And could not heave her head,

The tuneful voice was heard from high,

               Arise ye more than dead.

Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,

       In order to their stations leap,

               And music's pow'r obey.

From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony

               This universal frame began:

               From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,

       The diapason closing full in man.

Blue skies and leafless trees this morning

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-34759796